


Goodbye Instead of Goodnight

by mcrx21phandoms



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied Relationships, Mental Health Issues, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 12:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21338188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcrx21phandoms/pseuds/mcrx21phandoms
Summary: Something was off, very off. While L still sounded like his monotone self, there was a current of excitement. The kind of excitement like wildfire, bright and all consuming and unabiden.
Relationships: L & Yagami Light, L/Yagami Light
Comments: 3
Kudos: 49





	Goodbye Instead of Goodnight

**Author's Note:**

> title is a work in progress. i came up with this after staying awake for three days (yay insomnia) and felt, for lack of a better word, manic. i thought "hm, what if L got like that sometimes too?" and it turned into this. enjoy!.

Light awoke to an annoying rattle, coming from the six foot handcuffs. The very same handcuffs chaining him to a pain in his ass bratty insominac. Light turned slowly, as if L wouldn't notice he was awake, and read the soft blue glow of their shared alarm clock.

When Light was first chained to L, he came to realize everything was dim. Shrugging it off as one of his weird quirks, unconventional depression, or that L simply not caring about how the room looked. Light tried to include his own bright red fluorescent clock in the room only to find it covered by a hand towel minutes later.

Other things belonging to Light were scattered around the room, small knick knacks in soft pleasant hues, but anything bright, obnoxious, or neon was kept in Light's private dresser.

He peered at the dim clock to find it was 3 in the morning, an entire hour earlier than L usually woke Light up with his rattling and shaking.

"L"

"good morning, Light" Something was off, very off. While L still sounded like his monotone self, there was a current of excitement. The kind of excitement like wildfire, bright and all consuming and unabiden. "sleep well?"

"No. Quit rattling the chain and let me sleep"

"Light is already awake, so it doesn't matter if the handcuffs make noise"

Light mocked L's odd speech pattern, aggravated with only three hours of sleep after two all nighters "Light would very much like to not be awake, so stop moving"

"I'm not even moving, Light is being melodramatic"

Light turned around to glare at the thinner man, only to find him perfectly still aside from a slight tremor. L kept his right hand on the bed and typed with his left, his usual routine to let Light sleep before he got violent.

"Huh. You could have just said you were cold" Light picked up his old hoodie from the floor without getting out if bed, the generic cotton blend worn with age. He knew it was secretly L's favourite.

L held the hoodie in his lap, tracing the letters as easily as if it were always his. "What? I'm not cold. I'm fine." Words tumbled, spilling over before he could stop.

This was not like him. He was a black and white painting, neat contradictions of light and shadow, justice and necessary evil. Not this tornado of words, feelings and other worthless things he kept tucked between his ribs. This was not Light's L.

A gentle hand brushed L's forehead before he could blink. Did he blink? L couldn't remember. He couldn't remember anything right now. Light thought of the only other time he had seen L with an iota of emotion, a lost memory deemed to insignificant to to cling on to.

_"I_f_ you don't believe in God or higher power," Light asked long ago, too long to remember much other than L's answer to his artificial question "What do you believe in? Do you believe anything?" _

_"I believe in this" he answered, surprising Light with his young accented voice instead of his usual unassuming monotone. _

_"In myself and you and the room around us and the hum of the air conditioning. What is here, what is now and what has been. There is nothing to believe in the future, we don't even know if it exists, but we can remember our past and live in our present" _

_Light was surprised to hear such a raw confession from such a machine of a man- no, a boy. _

_L never told anyone his age, but the confession he gave to Light let it slip he was young. Too young to be doing this for so long. Too young to be so disconnected from the world that a serial killer was his first-ever friend._

L flinced as Light dropped his hand. "No fever. Just go to sleep or let me sleep"

"Fine. Goodbye, Light." He also found it odd L only ever said goodbye. Never a 'see you later' never a 'goodnight', always goodbye. As if Light would wake up to L gone or as if Light wouldn't wake up at all.

Used to this small pebble in L's boulder of quirks, Light responded as he did every night "Goodnight, L. I'll see you in the morning" a not so slient promise to stay here, stay alive, stay with L.

Light had never even thought of tempting death before, no, that was what L did, but he knew L needed to hear it. Even if L didn't know. Light would say whatever L needed to hear as long as it was true.

"Do you promise?" Was this even his L? His L never sounded unsure. This was a long lost abandoned child version of L. Before he turned himself into a piece of jagged glass, before his words became too sharp for his young mouth, before wrapping his chest in barbed wire until the space between his ribs looked hollow, before he torn himself into tiny pieces in order to get everything done.

Light knows that voice in many a lost child, wondering away from their family to look at a new toy, in loud sobs and quiet tears, convinced they've become orphans. He just never expected L to have it.

"Yes, I promise" Light slept soon after, L closing his cuff around the headboard as not to wake Light again.

"Thank you" L whispered in the dim glow of laptop screens, quieted chains and muted colours.


End file.
